A provider may rely on different channels to provide items to users. Example of such channels include a removal channel that may influence a user's decision to obtain an item. Generally, the provider's management of the channels is subject to different considerations and decisions. For example, the provider may make structural and parametric decisions given the available units of the item and the expected demand. The structural decisions may involve, for example, determining what channel(s) to use and when. In comparison, the parametric decisions may involve, for example, determining a quantity of the item per channel(s).
The provider typically implements different decision models to manage the channels, potentially resulting in fragmented decisions. This may lead to a sub-optimized channel management. For example, managing the removal channel may not consider a capacity to store certain units of an item as a variable. However, in certain situations, removing the item units may free up the capacity. In turn, the freed up capacity may be allocated to other channels. As such, by not considering the capacity as part of managing the removal channel, the different channels may be sub-optimally used. In addition, scaling up the decision models to large volumes of items and/or different types of channels may not be computationally feasible.